Lucina (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate)

Lucina is Marth's echo fighter, so she shares most of her standard and special attacks with Marth. However, while Marth's attacks are more powerful when made with the tip of his blade, Lucina's attacks just as powerful whether you use the tip or the base of the sword.

Lucina

Also appears in

Shares slot with

Availability

Lucina is a veteran Echo Fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimatefrom the Fire Emblem universe. She is the Echo Fighter of Marth, and is designated fighter #21ε. Her return was confirmed at the Nintendo E3 2018 Conference on June 12, 2018.

Contents

How to Unlock

Clear Classic Mode with Yoshi or any character in his character tree, with Lucina being unlocked after Ganondorf.

Have Lucina join the party in World of Light.

In the first two methods, the player must fight and defeat Lucina on Arena Ferox.

Attributes

Strengths

Fast mobility, giving her the ability to approach grounded and airborne opponents quickly.

Disjointed reach, giving her options in spacing and disrupting approaches as well as high priority

Consistent damage output when compared to Marth, which negates her reliance on proper spacing to deal damage.

Consistent knockback when compared to Marth, which allows her to secure KOs more reliably.

Strong aerial game, leaving her options for juggling and edgeguarding.

Fast startup and endlag on moves, allowing her good follow-ups with various moves while avoiding punishment.

Shield Breaker is a good poking option, and possesses enough power to deal high shield damage and potentially break them for a kill confirm or combo opportunity.

Dancing Blade offers quick damage racking, and can be varied for mixups.

Dolphin Slash serves as a quick out of shield option, and can stage-spike opponents, making it risky for opponents to intercept it.

Counter provides Lucina a means to retaliate against strong attacks.

Weaknesses

Lower KO potential when compared to Marth, making her unable to secure KOs early.

Lacks sourspot setups, which can make securing setups difficult.

Lacks ranged options and the means to counter them, making her susceptible to projectile camping.

Can be pressured easily, sometimes offstage.

Poor grab game.

Summary

Lucina follows the swordsman archetype set by her ancestor Marth; she possesses excellent mobility, average weight, and disjointed reach, which lends themselves into an effective pressuring game for Lucina. Her disjointed reach also allows her to disrupt approaches and space out attacks effectively, which can easily lead into combos. Lucina also possesses outstanding frame data, which makes her moves very difficult to anticipate and punish accordingly, which when combined with her mobility and reach defines her as a rushdown character, being capable of closing the gap between her and her opponent easily and edgeguarding effectively.

Unlike the character she is echoing, Lucina lacks a tipper at the end of her Parallel Falchion, giving her a balanced blade across all of her attacks. While this limits the early KO potential Marth possesses, she lacks the sourspots that Marth has, which eliminates her need to space her attacks to land effectively. Combining her balanced output and disjointed reach with her fast mobility, which she shares with Marth, Lucina excels at pressuring and juggling opponents, especially with her aerials and tilts, and is capable of fighting up close when the situation demands it, which Marth cannot do as effectively.

Lucina's Special Moves, while not a major part of her moveset, help to supplement her playstyle. Shield Breaker is an excellent poking and punishment option, and true to its name can deal high shield damage even when uncharged, which if used properly can pierce an opponent's defense and give Lucina an open window for racking up damage or confirming a KO. Dancing Blade is a four-hit combo which is a quick damage racker and punishing tool, and its swings can be altered for forcing opponents into setups for other attacks. Dolphin Slash is a quick escape option out of shield that can be used to relieve pressure, and is Lucina's main recovery tool, though it is a safe option due to its potential in stage-spiking potential edgeguarders. Counter provides Lucina a tool for retaliating, which can be useful for defensive play and mix-ups against approaches.

Lucina's main weakness lies in her lower KO potential, as she does not possess the power that Marth's tippered attacks do, which forces Lucina to be more reliant on combos to rack up damage, which is further complicated by the matter that Lucina lacks the sourspot combos that Marth has. Lucina also shares the same weaknesses as Marth; she is very susceptible to projectile camping, which makes approaching fighters like Samus difficult, and can be pressured easily by rushdown characters such as Fox and Greninja.

In short, Lucina remains fundamentally the same as Marth albeit possessing a lower skill floor. Though she can afford to play more aggressively than Marth, she must be more reliant on pressuring opponents with her aerials to rack up damage, and like Marth continue to shift between approaching to force the advantage or playing patiently to exploit an opening with proper spacing and timing with attacks.

Changes from SSBWU/3DS

Lucina gained considerable buffs from the changes in the game engine, as they enable her to play more aggressively, particularly with her aerials due to the universal reduction in landing lag and improved mobility. Lucina also received some changes to closely resemble Marth, though these changes do not significantly impact her playstyle. However, Lucina did receive some nerfs, mainly Neutral Attack being unable to be cancelled into another attack, limiting her combo options, and Dancing Blade dealing less damage and having less consistency in connecting the hits despite its faster execution. In summary, the overall changes to the game greatly benefited Lucina's standing within the cast, and is widely considered to be the best sword fighter in the game.

Aesthetically, Lucina has a more subdued colour scheme and simpler detailed clothing. Physically, Lucina's facial features are sharper as well her hair being reshaped, and her height now matches Marth. Lucina received new jumping, idle, and crouching animations that resemble Roy's from SSBWU/3DS. Finally, Lucina received a new victory theme based off Id (Purpose), the final boss theme of Awakening.

Attributes

Jumpsquat is faster.

Walk, run, and initial dash is faster.

Air speed is faster.

Ground Attacks

Neutral Attack swings at a more horizontal arc, reducing its vertical range. It can also no longer be cancelled into another attack.

Up Tilt moves Lucina forward similar to Marth, allowing her more horizontal range.

Aerial Attacks

All aerials have less landing lag.

Neutral Aerial's first hit has more base knockback and connects into the second hit more reliably, and deals more damage.

Forward Aerial has less knockback growth.

Back Aerial deals more damage.

Up Aerial has more knockback growth.

Down Aerial can no longer be teched on the ground, and deals more damage

Grabs and Throws

All grabs have more end lag.

Forward Throw consists of an elbow strike forward

Special Attacks

Shield Breaker can be angled, making it easier to hit opponents above or below Lucina.

Dancing Blade is now executed faster, but its first hit is slower, and all hits deal less damage.

Dolphin Slash has more landing lag. It also leaves afterimages of Lucina when executed, similar to Flip Jump.

Counter has faster startup but more end lag. It now produces a yellow flash when triggered, and plays the Critical Hit sound effect when the countering slash connects, though it only plays when countering strong attacks.

Moveset

Ground Attacks

Normal

Neutral Attack: Slashes in an upwards arc in front of herself, and then slashes a second time.

Forward Tilt: Slashes outwards while leaning forward

Up Tilt (Anti-air Slash): Slashes in an arc overhead.

Down Tilt: Stabs low to the ground.

Dash Attack: Slashes outwards while moving forward

Smash Attacks

Forward Smash: Slashes downwards against the ground.

Up Smash: Stabs upwards, hitting opponents once.

Down Smash: Slashes low to the ground on one side, then the other side.

Other attacks

Floor Attack (Front):

Floor Attack (Back):

Floor Attack (Trip):

Ledge Attack:

Aerial Attacks

Neutral aerial: Performs two spinning slashes in place to both sides.

Forward aerial: Swings downward in front of herself

Back aerial: Turns around and performs an upward slash

Up aerial: Swings in an arc above her while flipping.

Down aerial: Swings below herself; Meteor Smashes in the centre of the arc when the Parallel Falchion is directly below Lucina.

Grabs and Throws

Pummel: Lucina throws her knee into the grabbed opponent.

Forward Throw: Lucina does a quick elbow strike to the opponent's chest, launching them forwards.

In competitive play

To be added

Classic Mode: A Path of Heroes

Lucina's Classic Mode consists of her fighting various characters from the Fire Emblem universe in reverse chronological order in their their debut in the series. Her song in the credits is Id (Purpose).

In World of Light

Lucina does not make a direct appearance in the opening cutscene, but she alongside with the majority of the fighters are vaporized when Galeem unleashes his light beams.

After Galeem's first defeat and Dharkon's first appearance, Lucina becomes one of the fighters to fall under Dharkon's control. She can be found in the eastern part of the Dark Realm near the entrance to Dracula's Castle, and is an optional unlock after defeating the Omega Ridley Spirit.